Nobody Asked Me, But…

That was the worst first period of hockey I’ve seen since the Rampage were pathetic cellar dwellers…outshot, outhit, out hustled, out skated, outworked and out and out dominated.

Heck, It took them OVER TWO MINUTES to get the puck across the Providence blue line at the start of the game! Most teams at least get the puck across the blueline, maybe not in possession, but at least down there.

Not even close Saturday night.

It looked like the players thought there was a PRE-game skate with fans instead of the advertised post-game funfest.

Props to Adam Keefe and Simon Ferguson for trying to wake the team up with a couple of spirited tussles late in the period. Keefe really swung from the balcony in his set-to with Jeremy Reich and Fergy literally danced around the Bruin’s end with Byron Bitz (cool name, eh?), spinning each other while they argued who would lead.

It seemed to do some good, as I’m sure a few choice words from Greg Ireland during the intermission, since the Page came out and outplayed the Bruins in the second period.

There’s a lot of head scratching going on as the team fell to 2-7 with the 5-1 loss Saturday night. Defenseman Matt Jones and veteran Garth Murray, who scored a nice goal to close the gap to 2-1 in the second period, visited with me after the game and both agreed the guys need to stop trying to do everything themselves and start relying on each other to do their role.

There has to be a certain amount of “Rudy” in all of us that makes us want to take the bull by the horns and slap him into the opposing net (no offense T-Bone). But in hockey, like Jones and Murray said over and over again, it takes 20 guys to be successful and working hard isn’t necessarily working smart.

It will be interesting to see what can be done to right the ship. The best part of the deal for San Antonio is that the season is still very young. But a tough stretch lies ahead, and we can know quickly what this team is made of.

MORE RANDOM THOUGHTS

The Bruins score a freak goal as the defenseman just throws the puck in front of the net, getting Rampage goaltender Al Montoya to move to his left. But the puck never goes where Montoya is heading because it hits a skate and dribbles in in the other direction past a surprised masked man.

Moments later, Jones tried the exact same thing at the other end. Since the Rampage can’t buy a break, the puck never gets to the crease and bounces behind three Rampage players who are crowding the crease.

The Rampage have scored only 4 fan friendly goals this season — none since the 5-1 win over Iowa when they scored in the first period. SA has scored 14 goals at home — 10 coming at the west end goal, where most fans might as well be sitting in Seguin watching the action at the other end of the ice. Because the AT&T Center was built for the Spurs (the clock is off center for hockey on the blueline) most of the fans don’t get to enjoy a close up view of the proceedings past the west end blueline when the teams are down there. The Rampage have been shutout in the first and third periods (when they shoot at the fan friendly east goal, with all the people around them) in seven straight FF periods.

Rampage goaltender Al Montoya had a weird night.

First, the above mentioned dribbled deflection. Then, in the second period he almost carried the puck into his own goal — and then in the third, he kept yelling at the west end goal judge because he disagreed on the fourth Bruin goal, which the goal judge flashed the red light on the play.

In the second period, Montoya played the puck behind the Rampage net, only to have it, unknowing to him, find a comfy resting spot somewhere in his pads, like a lurking spider ready to bite an unsuspecting carrier. I actually had the thought, “great, Montoya is going to back into the net with the puck in his pants and score on himself,” but fortunately, referee Jeff Smith couldn’t find the puck and whistled the play dead before Montoya had an embarrassing moment. The way things are going for the Rampage these days, that scenario wouldn’t have been that surprising.

Late in the third, with the score 3-1, Providence’s Jeremy Reich came in on a breakaway that Montoya stopped (his second of the game), but the puck dribbled, there’s that word again, free and came close to crossing the goaline. From my perch high above the rink I couldn’t tell if it crossed or not and no replay was shown. Bottome line though, the red light flashed and so did the Rampage goaltender’s temper. If it were possible for Al to jump out of his gear without unsnapping something, he would have. Instead, he just snapped. I’m sure I know what he was saying to the goal judge as Al was being corralled by the linesman, “Hey nice man in the blue AHL sweater behind the glass, you’re supposed to be on our side and perhaps you erred in your judgment on that particular play.” Unfortunately, the goal judge actually works for the AHL, and although Al disagreed with the call, he was fortunate that referee Jeff Smith is the either the most patient ref or the most clueless one, since Montoya hit everything and everyone within arms reach over the last three minutes of the game without penalty, taking out his frustration on the call. and most events of the evening.

Some positive news — the Rampage penalty killers are the best in the league, even against the best power play unit — the Rampage stopped Providence’s top-ranked PP all three times Saturday to run the streak to 13 straight kills — Montoya was huge early when the Rampage were in hibernation in front of him and then again on the PK — the Bruin’s Matt Marquardt was the first opponent I’ve seen enjoy a “Kiss Me Cam” moment with a teammate this season. Marquardt raced over and into the camera shot to plant a wet one on a teammate’s helmet. He did not score, however, on the following shift.

Question of the Night?

If Providence’s Wacey Rabbit (real name) gets called up to Boston, will Beantown then have the corner of the “pro athlete cartoon character name” market along with the Red Sox’ Coco Crisp?

One Last Thang

What gives with Spurs Night with the Rampage? It used to be a pretty cool night where the players wore Spurs hockey jerseys, some tickets and Spurs do-dads were given out and a player would show up for a couple of bows and some autograph time.

A couple of years ago, Bruce Bowen was there for about 8 minutes and last year, Matt Bonner hung out for most of the night and even did a promotion with TBone. Last night, the Coyote, a regular in years past, must have been chasing cars on I-35 — he was a no show. And the only Spurs rep was the PA guy and it wasn’t even Stan Kelly! Just seemed like the Spurs Night amounted to Mike Lavender yelling Spurs every once in a while, a video of the Silver Dancers giving TBone’s cowpal the slaughterhouse treatment and the cool jerseys. Kind of a gyp if you ask me.